What I'm saying is the actual research project being funded by SENS are those which are not being adequately funded elsewhere. For example, stem cell therapy is one of the seven pillars of the SENS research agenda, but SENS does almost no work on this whatsoever because it is being adequately funded elsewhere. Likewise, cancer forms another pillar of SENS research, but to my knowledge SENS has only worked on avenues of early-stage research that is not being pursued elsewhere, like the case you mentioned.

I interpreted drethelin's comment as saying that donating to SENS was a waste of money since it's a drop in the bucket compared to for-profit and government research programs. My counter-point is that for-profit and public programs are not pursuing the same research as SENS is doing.